Chapter 2: The Expansion of U.S. Power

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Chapter Summary

The United States is a relatively young country, yet it has experienced a fast rise to military, economic, and cultural power. Throughout the nation's history, the United States has been active as a military and economic player by leading coalitions and through territorial expansion and institution building. The actors and institutions in the U.S. foreign-policy process are largely shaped by historical events. The National Security Act of 1947, which created the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency, provides an excellent example of how policy decisions are largely made from prior policy experiences.

This chapter highlights the difficulties that the United States faces as a country consistently involved in world affairs. The chapter begins by exploring the myth of an isolationist U.S. foreign economic and military policy. Although westward expansion was justified on the basis of ideological and moral superiority, force was often used. While the Monroe Doctrine critiqued European foreign policy, the United States continued to exert influence in Latin America. Institutional troubles have also been common in U.S. foreign policy, such as Woodrow Wilson's failure to enter the United States into the League of Nations because of congressional disapproval. Other domestic issues, such as public opinion, kept the United States from entering into the Second World War until the bombing of the military base at Pearl Harbor.

During the Cold War, the United States found itself committed to containing communism in developing countries. Containment led to an increased military presence, particularly in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Despite long and costly wars in Korea and Vietnam, the Soviet Union's eventual collapse led to unipolar balance in world power with the United States at the helm. The United States has found that even after the end of the Cold War, ethnic and religious conflicts, along with global terrorism, present problems for the "new world order." In its most recent history, the United States finds itself engulfed in a civil conflict in the Middle East, where Iraqi groups, insurgents, and the United States struggle to erect a standing government.

In order to understand the actors and institutions in the U.S. foreign-policy process, we must understand how they were created and how they evolved over the years. Actors and institutions are often slow to change in the sense that foreign policies are difficult to change and implement because of historical inertia and the setup of the U.S. government. The history of U.S. foreign policy, while short, encompasses changing global environments, institutions, and actors that will be discussed in the following chapters.